Assisting Human Service Professionals

Many families face substantial challenges. Confronting these challenges are human service professionals who work on the front lines every day in communities across the United States. Their job is to help families in crisis stabilize their situations and restore their ability to care for themselves. Effective interventions should also be timely, which requires access to updated and accurate information about unmet needs.

Family Policy

Family Impact Institute Publications – FII is an expert resource for professionals interested in communicating research to policymakers. FII provides resources to help bring a family perspective to policymaking, including several family impact checklists, and family impact analyses of policies and programs.

MFRI Indiana Community Outreach Program – MFRI networks with and train leaders in geographic communities, educational communities, and communities of career, offering regional community mobilization meetings, small grants, and grants for the faith-based communities that are motivated to help military and veteran families.

Reaching Rural Veterans – MFRI Collaboration with faith-based food pantries in rural areas, bringing communities together to provide resources and services that address the needs of military and veteran families.

Sesame Street – contact MFRI
Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind Sesame Street, created an educational kit to help young children cope with the hardship of seeing a family member deployed to war. This kit, Talk,Listen, Connect: Deployments, Homecomings, Changes (TLC) includes a DVD featuring popular Sesame Street characters along with printed materials and online resources. MFRI evaluated the effectiveness of these materials. TLCII: Deployments addresses the challenges of multiple deployments on the well-being of children and their family. TLC II: Changes focuses on the trauma of having a parent return from deployment with a wound or injury.

Zero to Three (ZTT) – contact MFRI
ZERO TO THREE, a non-profit that provides training to nurture healthy early development, created Duty to Care (DTC), atraining program to meet the needs of very young children affected by deployment. DTC educates childcare, family support, healthcare, and mental health professionals regarding the challenges facing military families. MFRI evaluated the curriculum’s effectiveness in meeting these needs.